Shooting Star
by ThatGuyPlaton
Summary: A terrible accident has left Steven and Peridot without their sight. Together, them and their fusion, Tourmaline, must remain strong and see the good in all the bad. Not Canon to Return of Cinnabar.


It wasn't a simple mission, in hindsight.

Homeworld had sent a message to the Crystal Gems, informing them of a tiny little detail that had gone unsaid the last few thousand years. It was nothing, they assured, a thing that could be handled in an afternoon.

Just a Shooting Nova Star bomb, that they had lost in the rebellion, still sitting in the bottom of the ocean.

Nothing much, right?

Three Gems were sent to handle the situation: Lapis to hold up the ocean, Peridot to lift the bomb steadily with her magnetic powers, and Steven to store it in his bubble and a layer of shields. Steven and Peridot even fused, just to make sure there wasn't any miscommunication between lifting the bomb and bubbling it up.

Their fusion, Tourmaline, could surely handle it.

As it turns out, Tourmaline is ever so slightly allergic to the stuff at the bottom of the ocean.

"Lapis. Lapis, _Lapis_!" Tourmaline shouted into their headset, immediately surrounding the dropped bomb in two layers of bubbles, followed by a layer of shields.

"What, what is it?" the voice at the other end of the line broke in, filled with static.

"I need you to drop the ocean, now!" Tourmaline threw two arms up, making tight fists as a dozen more layers of shields and bubbles formed. "No questions, just do it!"

"What?!" Lapis panicked. "But you're still down there!"

"Do it!" Tourmaline gritted their teeth, jumping back as their bomb bunker was now several times bigger than the bomb originally was. Looking up, Tourmaline gaped. A thousand tons of water barreled down on them, giving them barely a second to summon their own bubble for air.

Before the bomb went off.

Black. Black. Black. Black. Black.

Tourmaline expected a bright white, but all they got was black darkness. Maybe this was a black hole bomb, they thought. Half a breath passed. No, it can't. They certainly wouldn't be alive to even think, if that were true.

So why couldn't they see anything?

Where vision failed them, their hearing came through. A bit too well actually.

"Ack!" they cried, gripping their head as a pitch ringing came back to an audible range. It was like two drills, one at each ear, trying to meet in the middle. "Ahhhhh!"

After the assault that was their hearing, next came touch. Frigid freezing water crashed into them, completely drenching through their clothes and straight to the bone. It was like an ice cube slipped under their skin, _all _of their skin. The entire ocean felt like it was dogpiling them with it.

Oh wait, it was.

The subzero temperatures they felt outside soon drew a harsh contrast with the heat inside. A taste smashed them in the mouth, making them hack and spit as it crawled up their throat. It was like liquid copper, coating every inch of their tongue and cheeks and teeth.

Blood, it was blood, Tourmaline realized.

They tumbled aimlessly through the water, the ringing, the cold, and the blood hitting them in waves. They couldn't even begin to think, just dealing with the pain. Yet, as quickly as they began to drift, they came to a stop. The cold ocean water retreated from their skin, letting them breathe a sigh of relief as they popped the bubble around their head.

"Steven! Peridot!" they heard Lapis call. She must've pulled the ocean back up, they thought. "Tourmaline!"

"I'm here!" Tourmaline called, waving their hand through the darkness. With a cough, they hacked out a splatter of blood, clearing their mouth of the taste mostly. The ringing also began to fade thankfully. "I'm right here, Lapis!"

"I— I can see that," Lapis's voice steadied out, the flapping of her wings filling the quiet her words left.

"Ugh, how? It's so dark under all this water." Tourmaline squinted, trying to see if they could catch Lapis's outline in the darkness. "Where are you? The sound of your wings is blending in with the ocean."

"…Can you not see me?" Lapis asked, her voice quivering. Furrowing their brow, Tourmaline nodded. "Oh. Oh jeeze."

"What, what's the problem? It's just dark under all this water and—" Tourmaline yelped as they felt themself swept up in Lapis's arms. "Hey—!"

"We've got to get you home. We're on the surface."

* * *

"Can you open your eyes, Tourmaline?" Pearl asked, her voice cracking the silence from the wait after they got home. Gulping, Tourmaline squeezed the covers of the bed they sat on, nodding.

"Sorry, I— I can't really tell the difference." They tightened their grip on their thigh, trying their best to remember the colour of the blue on their jeans.

"It's okay, we'll figure this—" Pearl paused, just as their eyelids fluttered open. The sound of swallowed air followed.

"I don't get it," Amethyst called out from Tourmaline's right. They turned to the sound. "How can some light hurt ya? You're _made_ of light."

"Steven isn't." The voice of Garnet broke in, though from a direction Tourmaline couldn't place. Their heart rate jumped at that, hearing someone and not knowing where they were coming from. "At least not fully. His eyes are human."

"But those are Peridot's eyes too though," Lapis replied with a panic. The sound of her water wings retracting placed her at the edge of the stairs in Tourmaline's mind. "Shouldn't they be able to see at least a little?"

"That is true," Garnet admitted. "Maybe—"

"Steven is Peridot's guiding hand," Tourmaline spoke up with a gulp. "If he's blind, she's blind."

Silence then. Tourmaline was quickly learning to dislike silence. It was like being put to sleep in an instant. Gripping the sheets of the bed they sat on, Tourmaline sighed. Their fingers ran over the fabric, trying to get an idea of what it looked like. They couldn't even remember.

"What's going to happen when I unfuse?" they asked then, the question no longer ignorable. They heard Pearl stand up and a new body quickly take her place.

"I'm, not sure," Garnet said with a pause. "My experience with fusions taking damage is with Gems only. I don't know how this will affect you two when you unfuse."

More silence followed then, but this time only on the outside. Inside Tourmaline's head, thoughts were racing, screaming, crying, and shouting. Then, at once, there was quiet. Smiling, Tourmaline jumped to their feet, throwing up a fist and pumping it back.

"Then we just won't unfuse!" they declared triumphantly. "Not until my sight is back. Flash blindness never lasts that long, anyways."

Without waiting for another word, Tourmaline turned, confidently walking off of Steven's bed.

Off of Steven's bed, straight into a wall.

"Ow!" they yelped, rubbing their head. They turned, hoping to find the Gem's reactions, only to remember as they were left with blackness. "It's— It's fine, I just gotta remember how the house is laid out."

"Tourmaline—" It was Lapis's voice. Thank the stars, Tourmaline thought, finally one of them spoke up.

"I think you need to sit down," Garnet continued, her voice coming from behind Tourmaline as they carefully climbed down the stairs.

"Aww come on, waiting for my sight to come back while sitting on my butt sounds like _boring_," they complained, missing the last step and stumbling onto the ground floor. "I think I'll take my chances knocking into—"

"Your sight isn't coming back."

Tourmaline came to a stop, Pearl's voice freezing every stray thought and movement. They turned back.

"W-What?"

Silence then. Tourmaline despised silence. This quiet blackness, they couldn't handle it.

"Your eyes, Tourmaline, they're… Completely faded," Garnet said with a sigh. Tourmaline could hear her breath pitch.

"You're, you're not getting your eyesight back, at least not as yourself," Pearl continued, inhaling. "I— I think it's best, if you unfused now, so we can get a full sense of how bad the damage is."

And then, quiet once again. Pure quiet, as the Gems no doubt waited for Tourmaline's response.

And yet, despite how quiet it was right now, Tourmaline didn't hate it, not like they did before. The silence they experienced earlier felt excluding, left them feeling lonely and with no one else. Like they had been dropped in the middle of deep space.

But they weren't alone. Tourmaline, Steven and Peridot, they had each other.

They turned back to the Gems.

"No," Tourmaline said, crossing their arms.

"What." It was several voices, a mixture of Pearl, Garnet, and Lapis, Tourmaline determined. A second later, Amethyst spoke up.

"Huh?" The bed creaked with that. She was probably standing up from it, they guessed. "What do you guys mean, no?"

"We're not unfusing," Tourmaline added. "I don't know how it'd end up for Steven and Peridot if I unfused. One or both of them could be blind as well."

"Yeah, but that means there's a chance only one of you will be, and not both of you!" Lapis said, the sound of her water wings returning. Tourmaline had never noticed how often she called them out before.

"Exactly," they answered, leaving the room quiet. "There's a chance only one of us can't see. And Steven and Peridot don't want that. They would rather be blind together than let one of them be blind all alone. So, we're staying. _I'm _staying."

"Steven, Peridot," Pearl began. "There are real—"

"_Tourmaline_," Garnet spoke up, interrupting Pearl. "You do understand what this means, being together, possibly for forever? Neither of you will get the chance to be apart again, to perhaps _see _apart again."

Tourmaline paused, breaking away from their crossed arms. They thought for a moment, before shaking their head.

"Steven and Peridot would rather see nothing, than leave the other alone in the dark." They gave a weak smile, in what they hoped would be the direction of Garnet. "We're— _I'm_ staying."

After that, there wasn't silence. There was an explosion of voices. Lapis, Pearl, and Amethyst all talking at once, to each other, to Tourmaline, to Garnet. It was a waterfall of speech, of what this meant and what they were gonna do.

But before any of that, before Tourmaline could begin to string out what they were all saying, and try to answer the questions they were asked, Tourmaline was given a hug.

One of the Gems, which one Tourmaline couldn't say, hugged them tight, breathing deep as they did so. Tourmaline was caught off guard for only a moment before they returned the embrace.

"This is going to be hard, so hard for the _two _of you," they heard Garnet say. "But for you, Tourmaline? You're the _one_ who I know can handle it."

They smiled, burying their head in Garnet's shoulder as they did so.


End file.
